"Shiver Me Timbers!"

Little Squirt gets infuriated with me just about every 30 days, and it really isn’t my fault. On the last Friday of every month since the school year began, he enters my car at the end of the day and rants and raves about how disappointed he was that I was not the Mystery Reader for his classroom. Then he pouts all the way home and tells me that I took his heart and broke it into a million pieces. He’s a Drama King and ought to write poetry.

Today, unbeknownst to him, was my month to be the Mystery Reader. I laboriously searched this week through his countless books to find just the right one to read. One of his favorites, a book about pirates, caught my eye. And because I am an overachieving perfectionist, I put together 20 little bags filled with “pirate loot” such as maps, eye patches, gold coins and candy for all the students.

Oddly enough, I was a tad bit nervous about this reading. Go figure. I am on a Drama Team and can very comfortably perform in front of a large group of adults with a minimum number of butterflies. But I wanted to do this right and make Little Squirt proud.

I waited outside the doorway of his classroom while his teacher made all the children close their eyes in preparation for my entrance. “On the count of three you may open you eyes and see who the Mystery Reader is,” the teacher said. One…two…three!” I came into the room to face 20 pairs of bright youthful eyes. The owner of a pair of big brown ones shrieked in delight, “Mommy!!” My little boy ran over and gave me a hug, then proudly took my hand and directed me toward the reading chair. I sat down, read the book slowly in my finest dramatic fashion, and then passed out the pirate loot bags. They were quite a hit, as I guessed they would be. Kids love unexpected gifts.

I then treated Little Squirt to a lunch out at a restaurant of his choice. I asked him to say the meal blessing, in which he thanked God that his mommy was the Mystery Reader, and then asked that God would protect his siblings from ninjas on their way home from school. And over bites of chicken rings and cheese fries, he told me this was one of the best days of his life.

These Glorious Moment Feasts of parenting. I treasure them. I truly do. I savor them, relish them, and store them in my heart for those times of Glorious Moment Famine. Because those days do come when I feel like I’ve messed up and missed the boat, and the moments we share aren’t pretty. But today was a Feast day. A Glorious Moment Feast. I am so very grateful.

Solitude-ing

Project Pandemonium continues, but in a quieter, gentler manner. The industrial fans are gone (thank you, God!) and the Restoration Workerbees won’t be back until State Farm approves of their final quote. Our home is still in disarray, which is stressing the heck out of me, Control Freak that I am. But the boys have moved back into their bedrooms for the moment, until the Workerbees come back and repair their walls and put down carpeting and spray more of that Holiday Inn deodorizer. I’ve tried to put most of our things back in some semblance of order. For now, it feels like a bit of a reprieve. A cease-fire, if you will.

And I’ve been given a gift! Super Hubs, in his blessed thoughtfulness, gave me a Valentine’s gift of A Day of Solitude at a Jesuit Retreat Center to be utilized tomorrow. What glorious, heavenly timing to be granted a day away from the current chaos of my life! Early tomorrow morning I will head by myself to this beautiful turn-of-the-century type mansion on it’s rolling hills. I will bring my Bible, some books, a journal, and little else. The miserable weather forecast will not daunt me, for even if I cannot walk around on the grounds, I can hole up in the private room I’ll be given for the day. And try to still my ADHD soul. And be more receptive to the voice of God in my life. I need this time. I crave this time.

But here’s my fear. I am a people-person. Although I enjoy bits and pieces of alone time, I generally thrive in community. And I’m guessing that other people at this Jesuit Retreat House won’t be wanting to party with me. I’m assuming that if I get bored and lonely and fear isolation, I will begin exploring the mansion. Which will lead me to knock on random doors. And get all annoyingly chatty at the lunch table. Which will cause other Practicers of Solitude and Silence to become irritated with me. And possibly complain about me. And then I won’t be allowed back. They’ll hang a non-flattering poster of me by the doorway with a big X through it.

No. Noooo. I can do this. I need space in my life for solitude. I need a little quiet sanctuary away from the noise and the crowds where my inner sanctuary can thrive in the peace and hear from God. Jesus did it. I can try, too.

“Jesus withdrew to the wilderness to pray.” (Luke 5:16)

Project Pandemonium Update

It’s Day #4 of Project Pandemonium. I still cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, but at least the tunnel doesn’t feel quite so dark or icky….

The Restoration Workerbees came on Friday and ripped out bathroom fixtures and pulled up carpeting and walled off my dining room with ginormous sheets of plastic. Then they set up half a dozen industrial-sized fans that have been running day and night since, making it necessary to turn up the TV volume to 42. I shudder to think about the arrival of our next electric bill! The Workerbees’ parting gift was saturating the upstairs floor with a deodorizer spray that has made my house reek like A Clean Holiday Inn for the past 72 hours and has not helped my headaches.

My cats are beyond stressed and hiding under couches and pulling out their fur. And my sons have been displaced from their bedrooms. Rock Star currently bunks on a couch, and Little Squirt has joyfully taken to camping on the floor of our bedroom with several of his stuffed friends (which has made our Couple's Personal Time a bit more challenging…).

King Solomon clearly had plumbing problems and subsequent water damage as well when he wrote Ecclesiastes 3. “A time to tear down” is completely resonating with me. But I am feeling almost fully recovered from the crazy virus that hit me last week, causing headaches and fainting spells and general malaise. Today I feel 80% back to normal, which makes the hard stuff of life so much easier to bear. I feel better, so much better! I almost want to dance down some hills with my arms outstretched and sing songs from “The Sound of Music!” Except that we have no hills in IL. Only flat terrain with lots of snow. But spring is coming….and the sun is shining….and the Workerbees are coming today to turn off the fans. “A time to build up” will have it’s season soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Throne Woes

It’s been a week. How do I describe it…..lemme think. Bad? Worse? Awful? Horrendous? Words just don’t seem adequate……

It began early in the week with a pesky, overflowing toilet that was the fault of one short little child whose name I won’t mention. But he prescribes to the “more is better” theory of Toilet Paper Using. Between that and the way he uses our john as just another garbage can, (albeit wet) garbage can, the thing stopped up. Rock Star tried to come to the rescue with a plunger, bless his heart, which caused the toilet to overflow. He turned off the water connection, threw a small hand towel on the mess, and called it a day. I knew nothing about any of this until I came upstairs later and became alarmed when I noticed squishy carpet beneath my feet. I did not need to call on Nancy Drew to solve that little mystery. I followed the wet trail into the bathroom and saw a flood the size of Lake Michigan on the bathroom floor with one small hand towel floating upon it. So I yelled for help, grabbed all the bath towels in the house, and we soaked up the lake. Then we called a plumber, who came in with a snaky thing and unplugged the toilet. Yea, Snake Man! And we thought all was golden.

Fast forward three days later. Butterfly, ever the observant one, noticed some new large stains on our dining room ceiling when she came home from school yesterday. So after some panicked calls to State Farm and some shuffling through the phone book to find someone, anyone please God, who could come right away to our rescue, a team of workerbees arrived to save the day. They determined that, yes, we were correct in that our toilet overflowed and caused severe water damage to much of the upstairs floor and through the ceiling. Diagnosis: Major Disaster. They will need to pull up carpets and break through the floor and the ceiling. Today they are back and currently rearranging my furniture and draping things in plastic and waving demolition hammers. It’s frightening. The whole process will take at least a week.

I’m only trying to find a quiet, out-of-the-way corner of the house where I can lie down.I need to rest because I’ve been ill. I’ve had some odd spells for a couple of days where I get a head rush and feel like I’m going to faint. Which makes things such as driving risky. And after running through all the possibilities of why my head could be feeling that way, including some very scary diagnosis’ (and as an RN, I know many), today I believe it’s just a virus. I feel feverish and achy. So I am fantasizing about flying away to some condo on the beach, any beach, and lying in the sun while the workerbees fix my house and my body recuperates. If only.

Right now I’d just settle for a room where I can shut the door and take a nap. But the workerbees have hijacked the entire upstairs. And the dining room. I’d go lie down in my car, but it’s 15 degrees outside. (Big deep sigh of martyrdom.) At least we will get new carpet, when all is said and done. And I’ve been wanting new carpet. So there’s some good. And I am desperately looking for the good.

Awkwardness Abounds

Oh, do I abhor The Awkward! I really, really do. Awkwardness makes me feel so uncomfortable. Disconcerting. Uneasy. I much prefer having confidence. Self-assurance. Control.

Valentine’s Night had several of those little awkward moments that made me want to crawl into a ball under a piece of furniture and close my eyes, just like one of my cats does when we have a party. Block the icky out. Go some place in my mind that is friendlier and safer and completely non-awkward.

The first moment occurred when we were dining at a Puerto Rican restaurant with some dear friends of ours. We had been sitting in this teeny, colorful dining room for about two hours. A Latino man was entertaining us in the corner by singing Puerto Rican songs and playing guitar, and every now and then he’d throw in an American folk ballad for good measure, like “Under the Boardwalk.” I was enjoying dirty rice, fried plantains and breaded pork chops, and laughing with my friends over some personal stories. And then the first awkward moment hit.

A couple walked over to our table. They said they had seen us come in, and wanted to say good-bye on their way out. I hadn’t laid eyes on them 10 years. Literally. The wife, at one time, had been a friend-turned-enemy. She was a toxic authority figure in a tender season of my life, and I ended the relationship in February of ’99 after much soul-searching. And it wasn’t a pretty, neatly-wrapped ending. It was messy. And now here she was, a decade later, and they had been sitting very near to us in that tiny room for two hours without our knowledge. And possibly watching and listening. Ewww…. it felt violating and mildly threatening, and extremely awkward. And it will make another whole blog post, if I feel I need to write about it. But, filled up and fortified with our good friends’ presence, and laughter, and a tiny glass of chardonnay, I was able to be gracious. I pushed past The Awkward and gave her a hug and engaged in a few moments of light conversation. And then they left and it was over. And we were on to dessert. But I kept thinking about THEM….watching us…stalking us…..

Super Hubs and I drove home later, and entered our quiet house. A few teenagers were supposed to be mulling about, because Butterfly had gone to quickly drop Rock Star off at a movie, and she had assured me she’d leave a few of her friends in the house to babysit the sleeping Little Squirt. But the house was….silent. Too silent. I walked through the kitchen and entered the family room. Two teenagers (who were not mine) jerked up from their horizontal positions on my couch, quickly straightened their hair and their clothing, and babbled, “We were just watching TV.” Uh huh. I wasn't born yesterday or the day before. I fully recognize a little Valentine Hormonal Tango taking center stage on my denim couch.

Awkwardness.

Isn't It Romantic?

I’m feelin’ the love….

Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays! I am a romantic soul and lover of all things pink and sweet and sappy. My kids each wake up to find a gift at their place setting wrapped in heart-splashed paper, and rose petals sprinkled all over the kitchen table. I make them a dinner of pizza muffins, fresh strawberries, cherry jello and red velvet cupcakes. I pull out all my favorite romantic movies, just in case they’re interested in watching. I think it’s charming, but only Little Squirt seems to appreciate the tradition now.

My sweet husband and I always celebrate with a special dinner together. Last year I blogged about our first Valentine’s Day, which coincided with our second date. Fast forward two years later, and it was now our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple. We were living in an apartment in the ‘burbs, but Super Hubs worked on the south side of Chicago. I had the day off of work, and made plans to drive to the city to Super Hubs’ place of employment and pick him up, and then we’d eat somewhere spectacular downtown. I battled the traffic, and finally pulled up in front of his building. Just as he jumped into the car, The Valentine’s Day Blizzard of 1990 began. Big, white flakes began falling from the sky and covering the car. The streets of the city turned into a miserable mess. We decided to forgo eating in the city, and find a restaurant closer to home.

All in all, 10 inches of snow were dumped on Chicago that evening, and it took us 3 hours of slick, bumper-to-bumper driving until we finally made it back to our apartment. We were exhausted and crabby, but I was not to be daunted. We would have our mandatory Special Valentine’s Dinner out, I insisted, come Hell, High Water, or Ferocious Snowstorm! With the resolve of the juvenile, we jumped back into our car for another hazardous excursion to a nearby Olive Garden. Very few patrons were out that evening, and we sat at a table by a window and watched the snow fall. It wasn’t the romantic evening I had envisioned, but we enjoyed salad and pasta and wonderful wine.

Tonight Super Hubs is taking me out to a Puerto Rican restaurant a few towns over, because we like to try the new and unusual on this holiday. And we’ll sit and talk about Valentine's Days past. He is just as much of a romantic as I am, and I am grateful.

I wish you an abundance of love in your life, my sweet friends! And that you can look around and see all that is good and beautiful. Happy Valentine’s Day!

A Conversation Over Skittles

I picked up Little Squirt from school yesterday, buckled him into the car seat, and handed him his Tuesday treat of Skittles.
Me: “How was your day today, buddy?”
LS: “Oh…not very good.”
Me: “Why not?”
LS: “It was a very sad day. Somebody died.”
Me: (with dismay) “Somebody died?? Who died?!”
LS: “He was a friend of Mrs. Rubin’s. She read about him in a book.”
Me: “Who was it?”
LS: “A man with a beard who got shot in the head in the movie theater.”
Me: “Was the man’s name Abraham Lincoln?”
LS: (astonished) “How did you know that, Mom?? You’re sooo smart!!”

So, even though "the word on the street" is that I am in my “winter years” with a crone-ish voice, my six-year-old believes my brain to be still functioning at full capacity. He actually thinks I’m smart!

Makeovers

Sometimes it’s the purchase of a new purse that does it for me. Or the organization of my cutlery drawer. It’s those little changes that lead me to bigger changes. If my cutlery drawer is organized, I’ll want to organize the plate cabinet as well….and then the pantry…..and then, before I know it, I have a well-ordered, sparkly kitchen complete with future menu plans in plastic pocket protectors. It’s similar to giving the Moose the Muffin. That’s the way I work.

It was that way with my blog yesterday. I decided it needed some spicing up. It was feeling “tired” to me and needed a change, and I finally took the time to make that happen. I chose a new template, swished thing around, removed some things old and added some things new, and played around with color. And now that “A Complicated Woman” has had a bit of a makeover, it is leading me to want to fill my blog with stories. I want to write more regularly, which is a soul-filling experience for me. I’ve allowed too much “chaff” to get in the way.

Hmmm. Blog Makeover = Soul Makeover? Just as I shape my blog to reflect who I am, I am feeling God shaping my soul to reflect more of who He is in this New Year. He’s burning away the chaff. Out with some old and in with some new. He’s swishing things around, and shaping and molding and adding new color. And I’m trying my darndest to cooperate with Him and do my part, which might involve letting go of some old patterns and old relationships and old activities. But it's all good. “Simplicity is Mine in '09.”

So on I go….

Rapid Age Advancement Syndrome

My kindergartener told me this morning that I am aging. He said he could tell that I am getting older because my voice is getting “deeper.” What?? When I protested that I was not really that old, he said with conviction, “Yeah you are, Mom!” And he patted my shoulder patronizingly and added, “Sorry, but it’s true.”

I hold Wii Fit completely responsible for my Rapid Age Advancement Syndrome. At the urging of a friend, I tried Wii Fit. I’d never played Wii before. Not once. Not ever. I’m not opposed to video games, or allergic to video games. Video games are just not something I ever play. My kids play them, and my husband plays them. I don’t. I do many other things. I write and act and text my homies and make spectacular bloody mary’s. I just don’t play video games. But my friend talked me into it, and so I went to her house to try.

I stood on the Wii platform while it calculated my BMI, and then declared it was in the “normal” range. (Which is a relief. Because if your BMI is high according to Wii Fit, a little voice yells, “You’re obese!” which is apparently damaging the self-esteem of young British children, and causing an uproar among Obesity Experts in the U.K.)

After the BMI calculation, Wii Fit immediately began a “balance” game, in which I had no idea what it was that I was supposed to be doing. The goal, it seems, was to keep lines or something in the blue zone by moving my body back and forth in contortionist-type positions, much like when I played “Twister” back in the day. I didn’t quite understand the rules and performed miserably. And suddenly it was Game Over. Wii Fit began insulting me, saying that “balance” was not my “strong suit”, and asking me if I generally trip a lot. It came just short of calling me a Klutz and Waste Of Human Life. My feelings were injured. And then, after a faux drum roll, it declared my Wii Fit age as “sixty.” Sixty? SIXTY??

Since then, I’ve been walking around wondering if I look sixty. Or act sixty. Because clearly, according to the Wii Fit engineers, I am living in a body with Sixty-Year-Old Balance Ability. I’m beginning to obsess that I’m developing age spots, arthritis and ear hair. And now my six-year-old tells me I have the voice of an old lady.

My friend wants me to try the Wii Fit again. She has decreased in Wii Fit age, much like Benjamin Button. But she is physically very fit and almost 20 years younger than me. She’s a phenom, and Wii Fit likes her. On the other hand, I don’t think Wii Fit is fond of me and I’m kind of afraid of it. It’s cursed me with Rapid Age Advancement Syndrome. What if, the next time I play, it calculates my age as 70? 80? Or higher?? Will it keep increasing my age until it kills me off, like some creepy Horror Film Foe? I’m petrified to find out!

The Red Crayon

It is Monday, and I am sincerely hoping that Little Squirt is off to a better start this week. Super Hubs brought him home from school the other day. I was working on the computer when they entered the house. My husband gently pushed my child in the doorway toward me and said, “Do you want to tell your mom or should I?” Little Squirt’s
head hung low in shame and guilt, much like the dog’s does when I catch him snacking from the cat litter box.

“What happened, baby??” I asked.
My youngest stammered for a bit. “I got…I got…..I got a RED CRAYON!!” He burst into tears.

In my son’s kindergarten classroom, his kind and wonderful teacher maintains order With Liberty And Justice For All by the threat of THE CRAYONS. Each student has a paper pocket hanging on the wall, and if a particular student’s behavior is bordering on the problematic, the child, to his mortification, gets a construction paper YELLOW CRAYON placed into his pocket. This is a visual symbol that he is treading in the “danger zone” of punishment, and better readjust his behavior. It is an "admonition." A "grace period" to re-think one’s conduct. A "warning" of impending consequences if one continues down this road. It is similar to receiving a lab report of a high cholesterol level. Or seeing a “Danger of Avalanche” sign on a ski slope. Or hearing the eerie theme music before the shark makes his kill in "Jaws."

But Little Squirt had not received a YELLOW CRAYON. Oh, no. He had managed to do what no other kindergartener has ever done: He had bypassed the dreaded YELLOW CRAYON and gone straight to the horrifying RED CRAYON. And a RED CRAYON is every kindergartener’s worst nightmare. It symbolizes that the child has been dreadfully dready dreadful and has participated in some horrendously deplorable behavior. In fact, the child has been so terribly naughty that he must sign a piece of paper that is sent home to the parent, and the parent must acknowledge that they are raising an Unruly Hooligan by signing and returning said paper promptly back to the teacher.

Little Squirt’s crime: He took a large drink of water from the drinking fountain, turned around, and squirted the entire mouthful onto the unsuspecting child behind him (who happened to be his friend, Connor). So Connor was showered by Little Squirt Water and rightfully miffed. Hence the RED CRAYON.

So we had a little parent-to-child talk with Little Squirt about being a Walking Health Department Citation and General Public Nuisance. And he was grounded for the day from Sponge Bob and gummy worms. And he made promises to apologize to his friend, renounce his life of iniquity, and commit to living the rest of his days as a law-abiding citizen we could be proud of. (And I humbly apologized to Connor’s sweet and forgiving mother.)

The next morning Little Squirt was angst-ridden about going back to school and pretended he had a fractured finger and then fake-vomited, but I saw through his wily ruse and sent him anyway. And he came home and said he and Connor had “talked it out” and were friends again. So all’s well that ends well.